Iribe Dominates Race 2 at COTA

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Brendan Iribe drove to a dominant victory in the second GT America powered by AWS race of the weekend at Circuit of The Americas for inception racing.

The Optimum Motorsport-run McLaren 720S GT3 claimed its first overall win in the team’s North American debut, with Iribe finishing 1.767 seconds ahead of the No. 14 GMG Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of James Sofronas in Sunday’s race.

Having started on pole, Iribe jumped out into an early lead and stretched the advantage following the race’s only full-course caution and restart with 25 minutes to go.

Iribe opened up the gap even more on Sofronas, who overtook the Audi R8 LMS ultra of Jason Daskalos prior to a suspected mechanical issue for Daskalos that halted his race.

It promoted the No. 45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Charlie Luck to third overall, which was good enough to pick up Masters class honors for drivers over the age of 50.

Luck bounced back from two stoppages on the track earlier in the running.

The No. 04 DXDT Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of George Kurtz finished fourth, with Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Andy Wilzoch completing the top-five in his first-gen 991 GT3-spec Porsche.

Jason Harward, who challenged Sofronas for second early on, dropped back after an early race spin and subsequent penalty for an improper restart procedure, relegating the Zelus Motorsport Lamborghini to an eighth place finish overall.

Jason Bell appeared to be en route to the GT4 class win until spinning his GMG Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 with three laps to go.

It eventually handed the class win to Stephen Cameron Racing’s Sean Quinlan, who made a pass on the No. 89 RENNtech Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Ross Chouest.

Nearly half of the 40-minute race was run behind the safety car after a heavy crash by Matt Dalton in the No. 00 Notlad by RS1 Aston Martin GT4, who plowed into the No. 120 Premier Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport of Adam Adelson.

It marked the second major accident by Dalton in as many days after his airborne crash in the first Pirelli GT4 America race of the weekend on Saturday.

RESULTS: Race 2

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John